Setup and Configuration
We will be using a Dell E7370 laptop which feature USB-C connectors and Windows 10 as our OS. Once the Drobo is configured and setup, Windows will see it as 64TB drive. Of course, you don’t have 64TB … it just means you have a RAID array that has the capacity of up to 64TB.
For test purposes, we used 4 x Haitachi 2TB hard drives and 1 x Samsung 1TB hard drive. This is to show that the Drobo unit can truely “mix and match” different brands and different sizes of hard drives. Jusy use ANY hard drive size (or type) of your choice, as long as they have the SATA connector.
For testing, we will be using CrystalDiskMark, ATTO disk benchmark and Avil Disk Test, which will provide us with the read/write speeds of the Drobo 5C. We will be comparing it with the Dell’s XPS 13 internal SSD, an ADATA XPG SSD, and a WD Passport external USB3.0 hard drive.
Drobo Dashboard
Once all the hard drives are installed into the Drobo 5C, we need to configure it. Just download the Drobo Dashboard software from Drobo’s website and let the software detect the drives. The software allows you to format the drives on the device or reset the Drobo (restore factory settings and removes the previous RAID configurations).
As you can see in the above screenshot, I have 4 x Haitachi 2TB hard drives and 1 x Samsung 1TB hard drive installed. All health status is all good 🙂
If you’re setting the Drobo for the first time, I would normally install each hard drive individually. Let the Drobo detect it, wait for the status to turn green and then continue with installing the next hard drive.
For migrating an existing array from an old Drobo to a new Drobo …well, that’s a different story, which we will cover in our next article (coming soon).
We recommend to always “update” your Drobo with the latest firmware and software. That way, you shouldn’t run into problems with your disk array.
